The history of the world has many instances where certain moments became a turning point for not just our collective future but also photography. For instance, the first X-ray image by Wilhelm Röntgen was a pivotal moment for both image-making and humankind. Similarly, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, a spectacular group photograph was captured, likely one that will be challenging to replicate today. Why? Scroll below to find out more.
The lead image is a screenshot from the Nobel Prize’s Facebook page.
What is the Solvay Council?
The 1800s and the 1900s saw some of the most exceptional discoveries made across the world, which changed the way we perceive our physical reality. From the photoelectric effect to nuclear radiation to electrons, several discoveries began to challenge the rosy picture of our world. In fact, it helped us to understand how little we know about the planet and the universe we are born in. This led the leading physicists to organize an international symposium, one which could help to resolve the problems. This initiative led to the creation of the first Solvay Council in Brussels, which was named after chemist and organizer Ernest Solvay.
The first conference, or rather its success, led to more notable conferences on physics and chemistry, many of which continued to be organized well into the 2000s. Some of the notable names to be included were Max Planck, the father of quantum mechanics; Ernest Rutherford, the discoverer of the proton; and Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes, the discoverer of superconductivity. Some other notable names included Albert Einstein, one of the youngest members of the group, and mathematician Henri Poincaré.
According to Einstein, who attended the very Solvay Council in 1911, it was not at all fruitful. In a letter to a friend, he even compared it to “lamentations on the ruins of Jerusalem.” For the young physicists, the stubbornness of his colleagues and their conservative nature was a challenge they could not cross past. However, he further added that his colleagues did find his quantum theory a “helpful tool” but were also of the opinion that the principal could not be developed “in a coherent form” back then.
The Story Behind The Striking Photograph
However, by 1927, when the fifth Solvay Council was organized, Einstein proved the “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle” was wrong. The photograph you see above was captured during this conference, which was also one of the most famous council meetings. It was during this period that Einstein said one of his most famous statements: “God does not play dice,” to which Physicist Niels Bohr said: “stop telling God what to do.” In fact, on Reddit, the photograph is called one of “the most intelligent pictures ever taken.” And as it rightly should. Because of the 29 attendees, 17 of them actually ended up winning a Nobel Prize, with Marie Skłodowska Curie, who pioneered research on radioactivity, winning the award twice.
As we stated earlier, a photograph like this will be an impossible task to take today. It was a moment that is gone forever, and we aren’t sure when we will see some of the brightest minds again. The photograph was captured by Benjamin Couprie at the Institut International de Physique Solvay. One of the things that stands out is the somber expression of the scientists, followed by how some were not even looking at the camera. Were they reluctant to pose? Or could they be least bothered by the device’s presence? Another significant highlight is that Marie is the only woman in the photograph. While women like Marie paved the way for the younger generation to participate and accelerate science, the gender gap is still prevalent. However, photographs such as these only prove that while the world is changing, some things remain constant.
Subjects in the image:
Front row: Irving Langmuir, Max Planck, Marie Curie, Hendrik Lorentz, Albert Einstein, Paul Langevin, Charles-Eugène Guye, C.T.R Wilson, Owen Richardson.
Middle row: Peter Debye, Martin Knudsen, William Lawrence Bragg, Hendrik Anthony Kramers, Paul Dirac, Arthur Compton, Louis de Broglie, Max Born, Niels Bohr.
Back row: Auguste Piccard, Émile Henriot, Paul Ehrenfest, Édouard Herzen, Théophile de Donder, Erwin Schrödinger, JE Verschaffelt, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, Ralph Fowler, Léon Brillouin.
